Andreessen: Netscape Browser Slide Will Stop

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Andreessen: Netscape Browser Slide Will Stop

PARIS - After rapidly losing ground to Microsoft and its Internet Explorer browser over the past year, Marc Andreessen, disputing the latest stats, expects Netscape to "hold or grow" its market share.

"We are going to launch some exciting products, which should help our market share," said the browser-maker co-founder.

Dataquest earlier this month said Netscape's market share had fallen to 57.6 percent, Microsoft's had doubled to 40 percent.

"We are contesting those data. Dataquest used a sole source, which is unpermissible," said Andreessen, in Paris on Monday for the European Netscape Programmers Conference. But he declined to give a profit forecast.

He said Netscape is shifting further toward electronic commerce and business applications, such as the CommerceXpert product family for electronic commerce, and the Netcenter Online service to steer traffic from its Web site to partner businesses.

Andreessen said some of these partnerships were based on profit sharing, others on a fee basis, and others were on an advertising basis.

While Netscape was offering more and more services and content via its sites, "Netscape will not become a primary content company. We will not do our own news or share prices," he said.

Andreessen said electronic commerce "is going to explode in the next 12 months." Companies that made an early commitment to Internet commerce expect to sell US$8 billion in goods and services this year, expected to grow 40-fold to $327 billion by 2002, according to Forrester Research.

By 2000, there will be a $20 billion market for intranet software, says Montgomery Securities, and $6 billion in Internet advertising and transactions.